Good Beginnings: Leveraging the Strengths and Avoiding the Weaknesses of the E-Learning Medium

"Learners make split-second judgments about your course, and first impressions are lasting impressions that are virtually irreversible. You should look at your course and lesson openings as if you were meeting someone for the first time."

WOW! Wouldn’t it be great if your
e-Learning courses would capture learners’ interest, and drop out rates would
be so low you couldn’t measure them with current technology? It’s certain that
if your e-Learning gets off to a bad start it won’t gain the interest of
learners. Lack of interest leads to a lack of motivation, which results in no
learning. This article will focus on how to get your learners off to a good
start and establish a learning environment that will entice them to learn.

Learners make split-second judgments
about your course, and first impressions are lasting impressions which are
virtually irreversible. You should look at your course and lesson openings as
if you were meeting someone for the first time. There is always the possibility
that you’ll be meeting someone already biased against you. Fierce competition
for the other person's attention complicates your situation. How you’ll measure
up to their expectations in the first few minutes will make the difference
between a great start and no start at all.

In an e-Learning application the
learners are the other person and you, the designer, are the one who has to make
the good impression. The other per-son's biases are
the learner’s preconceived notions about computer-based training, and the
competition is the myriad tasks clamoring for the learner’s time and attention.
Your course’s introductory material can be the beginning to a great learning
experience, or the starting signal for an Olympic mouse clicking event.

To ensure your
introduction to e-Learning is a positive one, there are three design principles
that every course and lesson should address: directing learners’ attention,
gaining learners’ interest, and preparing learners to learn.

Greeting the learner and directing attention

First impressions rest
in large part on appearances. When we encounter other humans for the first
time, we notice such things as race, height, weight, clothing, facial features,
and hair color. In face-to-face communications your appearance and demeanor are
the signals that lead to a first impression. In the e-Learning world it is
going to be your introductory content. Good screen design practices (fonts,
color, navigation, and graphics) are the tools that can help you to accomplish
a pleasing and acceptable appearance. After appearances, two important aspects
of the introductory material are essential to making a positive impression with your potential
learners: directing the learner’s attention to what is important, and making
the learner’s acquaintance.

Gaining
and directing attention

The reality of our busy
multi-tasking lives is that you’re competing for a learner’s attention. If your
e-Learning environment is similar to mine, it’s the same computer that’s on my
desk loaded with tasks beckoning me to work on them. Most likely, the
e-Learning course material appears on only one of my dual screens, with e-mail up
on the other. The learner is adjacent to a phone; probably the one that is
blue-toothed to the learner's ear. In this competition you’ll need all the edge
you can get; and a good design can give it to you.

Gaining a learner’s attention is
probably the most ephemeral thing that happens at the beginning of a learning
event. The goal of gaining a learner’s attention should happen in such a way
that learners easily forget about the medium and become engrossed in the
message. Smith and Ragan (1993) put it this way, “The major concern of
designers is that they include enough stimulation to draw the student’s
attention to the learning task, but not so much stimulation that the student’s attention
is directed only toward the attention-directing device and distracted from the
learning task.” Knowing that the learners’ attention is drawn to the parts of
the screen that stand in contrast to the others is the key to directing the
learners’ attention. Contrast can be achieved in variations of brightness,
color, size, shape, type style, and motion. An acid test for a successful attention-getting
design is that when a learner is distracted (and every learner will be), the
learner can come back to the screen and, with little effort, find the important
material.

In Figure 1, notice how the word
“Welcome” stands out in large, bolded text in contrast to the other information
on the screen in the upper-left area. As kind of a bonus, in Western cultures
that is the generally the first area we will focus on. This word, “Welcome,”
was probably the first thing you noticed when looking at the figure. Further,
the screen also contains two sets of italicized text indicating the salient
message on the screen. Try the test. Look away for a few moments and then look
back at the screen shot. Was it easy for you to find the italicized text?

DO:

Use sound, boxes, graphics (static
or animated), arrows, or changes in text (font, bold-facing, underlining, and
italics) to create a contrast to focus on the learning task.

Keep variations in fonts to a
maximum of three.

Use multimedia methods, such as
alterations in perspective, panning, zooming, and irising, in moderation.

Use variations in color sparingly.

Exclude extraneous material.

DON’T:

Spend a lot of resources on bells
and whistles that don’t support learning.

Overuse the same contrast scheme
or it will lose its effectiveness.

Greetings
and felicitations

Because meeting your learners in the
e-Learning world should be just like meeting someone in everyday life, the
first thing that should happen is a greeting. When you meet another person for
the first time there is a short social process (etiquette) of a greeting. “Hi!
I’m (your name). How are you? (Wait for reply)” or “Welcome! Glad you could
make it!” Except in cases of an emergency, a greeting usually takes place
before you jump into the subject of the moment. Greetings are so essential that
some experts recommend using a portion of precious class time (in classroom instruction)
to greet the students as they enter the room. The general rule of thumb is the
first 15 minutes of class time is for interacting with the participants. The
same etiquette applies when someone enters your cyberworld classroom for the
first time.

There is a range of ways to greet a
learner. Greetings can be both audible and physical. The simplest form is a
“Welcome!” such as the one given by onscreen coach Dr. Laurie in Figure 1. A
little more challenging is a balloon greeting from an onscreen coach using the
learner’s name. With a little programming magic, you can access the time from
the computer and convert it into a: “Good ___________! (Fill in the blank with
whatever time of day it is; morning, afternoon, evening, or what are you doing
up at this time of day?).” If you want to be really creative the ultimate might
be offering a greeting (including the learner’s name) from an animated avatar.

Here are some tips for greetings.

DO:

Make the greeting first.

Use the learner’s name when practical,
while being culturally sensitive. Keep in mind, as with many forms of
communication, greeting habits are highly culture- and situation-specific and
may change within a culture, depending on social status and relationship.

DON’T:

Use a learner’s identification
number in the greeting.

A greeting may seem trivial, but it
is worth the effort. “Research on discourse processing shows that people work
harder to understand materials when they feel they are in a conversation with a
partner rather than simply receiving information.” (Clark & Mayer, 2003).
Including a greeting is the first step in establishing a partnership.

Gaining
learners' interest

Gaining a learner’s attention is not
the same as encouraging interest. Attention is of short duration and it may not
be infused with desire or emotion, but it should, at least, open the way to
interest. Interest relates to motivation. A learner’s motivation to exert
effort toward a goal is based on his or her perception of associations between
actions and outcomes. You can gain a learner’s interest by illustrating the
relevance of what he or she can accomplish through your course, or by
incorporating an interest-gaining strategy.

Relevance

When faced with an event that infers
action and sustained energy, learners will evaluate the situation to determine
whether it is worth the effort. Bob Pike (1994) puts it this way, “... people
are tuned to the radio station WII-FM: What’s In It for Me.” In order to broadcast
on the right frequency with your learners you need to establish a link between
the skills they will obtain through your course and how those skills can be of
value to them. You can establish relevance to learners by:

Stating explicitly how the
instruction builds on the learner’s skills.

Find out what the learner’s
interests are, and relate them to the instruction.

Connect the skills they will learn
to future goals.

Include a video of an alumnus of
the course giving testimony on the value of the skills he or she learned from
your course.

The example in Figure 2 explains the
importance of being able to understand the meaning of the terms used in a
hearing test. It relates the terms of a common blood pressure test to the
future skills of being able to comprehend the result of a hearing test.

Strategies
for gaining interest

The potential of computer-based
media for encouraging interest is one area where e-Learning can really shine.
It’s kind of like popcorn and microwaves. Everything you desire comes in a
small packet. Just pop it in the microwave and in a couple of minutes you have a
self-contained, good-smelling treat. Likewise if you overdo it in the microwave
by even a relatively short amount of time, you end up with a pungent-smelling bag
of unwanted goop.

John Keller (1987) describes several
interest-provoking strategies, three of which can encourage interest if you
incorporate them at the beginning a course or lesson: incongruity and conflict,
concreteness, and inquiry.

You can present incongruity and
conflict by using the strengths of the computer’s ability to provide a multimedia
experience. You can use video and animation to introduce facts that seem to
contradict the learner’s past experience. You can show impossible scenes by
altering place and time. You can morph objects into relevant content by
presenting an example that does not seem to apply, but which actually illustrates
a given concept. Split the screen to introduce two equally-credible facts or
principles of which only one can be true.

You can best implement concreteness
by using pictures. This is the one time in an e-Learning environment where it
is appropriate to use pictures for their decorative function. That is, where
the intent of the picture is basically for aesthetic appeal, or to trigger an
emotional response. It is best to show a visual representation of an important
object, set of ideas, or relationships. One method is to use a progressive
disclosure. You can achieve progressive disclosure by sequentially adding
information to a picture. Use video or animation, or adjust the size of a
“mask” until the final picture is exposed.

Inquiry may be included within your
introductory material simply by asking a question. The question should connect
a learning goal to a role or responsibility that the learner will be expected
to perform. Another way to include inquiry, when not constrained by having to
present material sequentially, is to allow the learner an opportunity to select
topics.

Figure 3 combines an introductory
question (inquiry) and a slowly developing slide show that presents pictures (concreteness)
of an ambulance, an accident scene, and then progresses to management
involvement in an investigation. The screen contains an audio track which plays
over the pictures.

DON’T:

Overload learners with
too much information.

Confuse learners with
unrelated context.

Use pictures
containing too many elements so it is difficult to interpret.

Gaining learners’
interest is a bit like being a sales person. You need to combine a bit of flash
while being able to express the value of your product to your potential
customers in terms of their desires. Knowing the value of your course, and how
it applies to current or future needs, is how learners will make the
connections between the action (taking your course) and future outcomes, thus
providing a climate for the learners to be self-motivated.

Preparing the learner to learn

When it comes to
learning, the brain is very much like a muscle. In order to get optimum
performance, you need to warm up and stretch your muscles. An effective warm-up
includes movements that increase your heart rate and breathing, and slightly
increases the temperature of your muscles. In a similar way you can help the
brain warm up by sharing the learning objectives, advertising upcoming events,
and activating previous knowledge.

Sharing
learning objectives

Beginning a course or
lesson without knowing the objectives is like starting out on a trip without
knowing the destination. There is no way to plan for the journey. One way to
pave the path to successful learning is to share the course and lesson’s
learning expectations. You can establish the expectations by sharing the
learning objectives. Since relevance is the “What’s in it for me?”, objectives
are the “How I will I come to achieve the valuable skills and knowledge
available within this course?”

There are several
reasons to share the learning objectives. Knowing the objectives can establish
expectancy in learners, and arouse their interest. In addition, giving learners
a clear idea of what they are to achieve allows them to connect with prior
content and general world knowledge. Connecting to what the learner already
knows provides a foundation for the course’s subject matter. Further, sharing
the course’s learning objectives opens the door for selection of learning strategies, and gives learners a
metric so they can judge when they need to seek help or clarification.

Referred to by many names
(performance, instructional, behavioral), the basic learning objective is a statement
of a behavior the learners will be expected to do, the conditions under which
the behavior will be performed, and a standard of achievement.

Learning objectives are a tool. That
is, like most tools, learning objectives come in various forms that are usable
for different reasons. Although providing precision for an instruction
designer, Gagne’s five component format (situation, object, learned capability verb,
tools, constraints or special conditions) is rarely appropriate for expressing
the objectives to the learners. Objectives that are too detailed, and that use terms
and concepts that they haven’t learned yet, can interfere with learning. You
should convert formal objectives by applying the Personalization Principle (Clark
& Mayer, 2003). Use a more conversational style and weave them into
practical application.

For an example, refer to the first
bulleted learning objective in Figure 4, taken from a Blood Borne Pathogens
course.

The learning objective for use by an
instructional designer (Gagne form) would read: “When asked to tell what the
risks associated with blood borne pathogens are, the learner will assert orally
the risks associated with exposure to blood borne pathogens with reference to
the definition of a blood borne pathogen.”

Converting the objective to a form
appropriate to the learner by applying the Personalization Principle resulted
in: “At the end of this lesson you should be able to explain to a friend why it
is important to be knowledgeable about blood borne pathogens.”

Please note:
Chronologically, the Welcome screen in Figure 1 would come prior to the
Learning Goals screen because it contains the definition of a pathogen. It is essential
that learners have knowledge of the terms used when presenting goals and
objectives.

Upcoming
events

A strategic element of surprise is a
desirable and important tactic in modern warfare when your goal is to destroy
an enemy. When learning is the goal, however, you are better off to avoid
surprises so learners can be prepared for the upcoming learning event.

Preparing the learner for upcoming
events is relatively easy to accomplish. Just tell them. You’re exposed to this
tactic all the time via radio, newspapers, and television. A radio announcer
will explain what the songs in the next segment are going to be, “Right after
these messages from our sponsors.” At the top or bottom of the front page of a
newspaper are vignettes of major stories in the following sections. News
anchors let you know what stories they will cover in the next half hour. In the
learning arena you tell the learner what is coming up, at the beginning of a
course, at the beginning of each section, and at the completion of each lesson within
a section.

An example of laying out the content
of a lesson appears in the lower portion of Figure 5. The lesson content
outline explains that the topic will appear in a bottom up approach (an
organizing strategy), followed by practical exercises.

Activating
previous knowledge

For all practical purposes learning
is the combining of new information and ideas with what learners already know.
A bridging strategy is what connects something already known with something
new. The bridging strategy that most lends itself to e-Learning is the analogy.
You base an analogy on the similarity between two things, which you can
compare. For example, the heart is like a pump. The known concept, pump
(sometimes called the analog, or vehicle) is compared to what is to be learned
(the subject) through a connector (an “is like” phrase).

Now you could use an analogy as
simple as the one above, but for helping people to learn, that’s like building half
a bridge. To ensure that learners make the connection, it’s important to
provide the learner with the similarities and differences between the concepts
being compared (sometimes called a ground). For an example, refer to the
beginning content in Figure 5 which compares a type of scaffolding (tube and
coupling) to Tinkertoys®. Then the similarities of the scaffold’s qualities and
components are specifically matched with components of Tinkertoys and their
functions (tubes are like the sticks and couplings are like connecting wheels).

DON’T:

Just as a coach prepping
a team for a game would ensure the players know the game plan, and warm up prior
to the start of a competition, a good beginning of an e-Learning course can
prep learners by sharing the learning objectives, informing learners of
upcoming events, and helping them to recall previous knowledge.

Is it worth the effort?

Most likely, if you
included the three design principles discussed in this article, all three would
take effect within the first minute or two of your e-Learning course. You may
even think, “This is much ado about nothing.” But, having a good beginning is
like building a house on a strong foundation. When the winds of distraction, or
maybe even the quakes of tiredness and boredom strike, the interest and value
you present in the beginning of a course and lessons will help the learner to
weather through. I think Michael Allen (2003) puts it succinctly: “Excellence
in e-Learning comes not from the fact that it employs technology for delivery,
but rather from how e-Learning uses available media and the purposes to which
it applies them.” A good beginning is a worthy purpose.

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